You may have noticed that I wrote a piece about Ayr Station Hotel on Monday morning and, to be honest, I didn’t expect to be writing about it again so soon. But, as we all saw from the vivid pictures in The Herald, by the Monday afternoon the hotel was up in flames (again) and so here we are: concerned, angry, trying not to say I-told-you-so but mainly more determined than ever to do something about it.

Which is why I want to tell you about what Mr David Ramsay has to say on the subject. Mr Ramsay is one of the campaigners who’s been trying to save the hotel complex in the face of, as he sees it, intransigence, avoidance and a secret agenda by some of the parties involved to let the hotel deteriorate to the point where they can pull it down. Mr Ramsay has seen the situation close-up and is not impressed.

But first, a bit of background on Mr Ramsay. He’s an engineer who’s worked in the construction of infrastructure for the oil and gas industry. He was also chair of the Ayr Station Hotel Community Action Group and in 2021 prepared a feasibility study on the building. And he's had meetings with South Ayrshire Council and Network Rail and has delved into the details of the crisis. He’s a thorough and dogged campaigner and is convinced he knows what’s going on here.

Basically, what Mr Ramsay claims is that South Ayrshire Council and Network Rail, which owns around 50% of the hotel complex but not the hotel itself, have been working, without ever admitting it publicly, to bring about the demolition of the buildings and replace them with a “transport hub” incorporating a bus station and shopping centre. The conclusion of his 2021 report was that “several parties are conspiring to neglect a historic listed building and bring about its demolition for no other apparent reason than the desire to replace historic with modern”.

Mr Ramsay admits the evidence he has is circumstantial. But there are a number of factors which he says support his theory, the first of which is the independent report that was produced in 2008 on extending the conservation zone in Ayr. The report recommended six new areas should be included and the council accepted them all except one: the hotel. Mr Ramsay asks: why would they do this unless they wanted to prevent it from being protected?

Mr Ramsay also points to what happened when the action group tried to come up with a plan to save the hotel complex. A meeting was held between Mr Ramsay, the council, and Network Rail in 2020 but Mr Ramsay says obstacles were put in the way of the group making progress, such as making access to the site difficult. “There needs to be a commercial case for the building and I was prepared to put that together,” Mr Ramsay told me, “but all I met were brick walls.”

The real agenda all along, according to Mr Ramsay, has been the plan to replace the building with the “transport hub”, a plan which he says the council has been pushing for years. Where’s the feasibility study on keeping the building? he asks. He also believes, having spoken to staff, that Network Rail want a new modern building that could attract retailers and make them some money. “They just want the hotel away,” he says.

If that is the case, it’s depressing stuff and so I asked Network Rail and the council for their take. Network Rail said a process to look at various options for the hotel had taken place but they did not own the hotel. They also said that alongside the council, Transport Scotland and ScotRail, they had been working on reviewing the options and would continue to work collaboratively towards an improved environment. As for the council, I gave them more than 24 hours to respond to my questions but they didn’t reply within the deadline.

I’d like to say that in the end I come away from all of this with some hope intact and it’s still true, even after the fire, that the building is sound and can be saved. But I’m afraid to say it’s hard to disagree with Mr Ramsay that the building is now seen as an obstacle rather than an opportunity. It’s also hard to avoid the conclusion that the bulldozers will eventually be allowed to do their thing and the building will be lost for good. Maybe there’s still time to stop it. But maybe not.